`Hard-tack, Salt Pork And Faith'

Exhibition Portrays Life Of Civil War Soldiers

MIDDLETOWN — The photo of Samuel Huxham of Middletown shows a bright-eyed young man with an infectious grin and apparently not a care in the world.

But life became simultaneously far more exciting and serious for this 25-year-old English immigrant in August 1862, when he enlisted in Company B of the 14th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry Regiment.

Private Huxham left behind a wife and 2-month-old son in Middletown when he marched off to fight the Confederates, and ultimately became one of the thousands of soldiers who took part in the battle of Gettysburg during the first three days of July 1863.

On July 3, reported Sgt. Benjamin Hirst, he found Huxham ``shot through the head. He was kneeling down with his gun resting upon a fence rail and he seemed to be taking aim. I did not know he was dead until I placed my hand upon his shoulder and spoke to him.''

Sam Huxham, who exchanged the civvies in which he had his photograph taken for a uniform of Union blue and died fighting to keep his adopted country from being torn in two, is just one of the real people whose moving stories is recounted in the permanent exhibition ``Hard-Tack, Salt Pork, and Faith: Middlesex Soldiers in the Civil War'' on display at the Middlesex County Historical Society, 151 Main St., Middletown.

The exhibition is a scaled-down version of a larger one that the Middlesex County Historical Society mounted in 1991. It proved so popular -- and so appropriate because the Middlesex County Historical Society's brick 1810 headquarters building was once the home of Civil War martyr Major General Joseph Mansfield -- that it was decided to make at least part of it a permanent feature.

``Hard-Tack, Salt Pork, and Faith'' features about 60 original items, including photographs, letters, weapons and military equipment, each chosen for maximum impact and interest, on view in a single room that can be toured in less than an hour. It uses the approach that proved so effective in Ken Burns' ``Civil War'' public television mini-series, of letting the individuals involved in the conflict speak for themselves whenever possible, by quoting from their letters and diaries.

The exhibition's very title is drawn from the words Sgt. George A. Hubbard of the 14th Regiment, Company B, who wrote on New Year's Eve, 1862: ``We are living at present chiefly upon Hard-Tack, Salt Pork & Faith, the last article being our chief subsistence.''

A visit to ``Hard-Tack, Salt Pork, and Faith'' will provide a meaningful, often touching introduction to the diverse, sometimes conflicting, aspects of the Civil War, ranging from violent death to narrow escape, from devotion to the cause to disillusionment with the war, from boredom to anguish.

Samuel Huxham, the exhibition makes clear, was one of dozens of Middletown men who gave their lives to preserve the Union. Another was David B. Lincoln, also of the 14th Regiment, Company B, who was wounded at the battle of Fredericksburg, Va., on Dec. 13, 1862, and died four days later.

``On the bridge fell good David Lincoln,'' wrote Chaplain Henry S. Stevens. ``Though the sight of his poor, mangled form forced out our tears, his smile was beatific as he gave us words of love for his young wife. We buried him in the garden.''

Others who served in combat were more fortunate. The hat worn by Dr. Levi Jewett of the 14th Regiment is on display. Still visible is the 3-inch gash made by a shell fragment that inflicted a head wound on, but miraculously did not kill, the regimental surgeon. Also on view is an actual example of what has become a key feature of battlefield lore: a pocket-sized copy of the New Testament that still has lodged in it the musket ball, which the book presumably stopped from wounding or perhaps even killing the man carrying it.

President Lincoln's signing of the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, added abolishing slavery to the Civil War's original purpose of preserving the Union, a step that stirred deep emotions. Some Middletown men embraced this new crusading aspect of the conflict, including two whose photographs are on display in the exhibition: James Powers, an African American who served in the 29th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, an all-black regiment; and Nathaniel N. Hubbard, a white man who was just 20 when he became a lieutenant in the 6th Regiment United States Colored Infantry.

Other Union soldiers were bitterly opposed to the development, the cause of their disgruntlement expressed by Sgt. George Hubbard in a letter he wrote less than three weeks after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued: ``My Patriotism is fast leaving me for when I came out, I came to help defend the Old flag and sustain our once happy nation but alas what we are fighting for now is the . . . [Negro] and a set of Abolition Politicians at Washington looking more for self-interest, than the welfare of our glorious country.''